The theory of the critical moment in the chess game was explained once by GM Iosif Dorfman, who suggested that every game has 5 or 6 “forks” at which the important decisions are made. Accordingly, all major erroneous decisions are made at these moments when there are multiple possible choices. Mikhalchishin describes different critical moments in detail and explains how to react correctly. Understanding the play at such a critical moment is the key to improving one’s results and general understanding of chess. Critical moments are characterized by the presence of between 2 and 4 different possibilities – the exchange of pieces, the calculation of a long variation, a positional solution or transposition into an endgame. Mikhalchishin shows how to perform correctly in the above situations. Video playing time: 3 h 26 min.

Adrian Mikhalchishin, a Grandmaster since 1978, is currently among the top 5 world trainers and FIDE Trainers Committee Vice-Chairman. He trained the team of USSR in 1980’s ,national teams of Slovenia, Poland and Netherlands, and was the trainer of Anatoly Karpov (1980-1986), trained Zsuzsa Polgar, Alexander Beliavsky, Maja Chiburdanidse, Arkadij Naidich and Vassily Ivanchuk.